This weekend I sold 4 rolling ball sculptures and a video!
I haven’t gotten all the money yet but supposedly I will.
I really won’t see any of the money anyway as my medical and
credit card debt will eat it up but hopefully it’ll put a
nice dent or at least a noticeable scratch into my debt. I
sold a large sculpture ($800 but with free shipping), a
medium sculpture ($156), a small sculpture ($48) and a video
($20) and then a lady wants me to commission a sculpture
($150) and I already have a bid on a small sculpture I have
listed on ebay. Also, I’m half way through a 2’ wall
hanging sculpture and half way through my volume 2 video.
It has been a productive weekend. Anyway, this week I’ll be
stressed trying to complete the commissioned sculpture by
Friday because she wants it for her sons birthday in a
couple of weeks. So I’m sort of stressed this week trying
to get it all done.

I bought a 1TB hard drive this weekend. It was a Segate
SATA 7200rpm with 32mb cache. I had $105 of birthday money
and guess how much it cost? Yep, $105. I could have
probably gotten a better deal on slickdeals.net but I got it
Friday and was able to play with it all this weekend. The
best thing was, I was able to install it, transfer
everything from my old drive and boot up and go all without
any grief. It’s really weird that any sort of computer
maintenance heart surgery like that would go off without a
hitch. I must have done something wrong! That easy going
right there was worth the extra money I paid. I figured XP
would complain that it was on a different drive but it
didn’t and seems to be running happy on the new drive. I’m
happy about that!

Lately, I've been making rolling ball
sculptures and selling them on ebay.
It seems the small sculptures sell the best on ebay but
they only go for about $30-$35 each. I'd rather make and
sell larger
sculptures but they just don't sell that often. I
recently hooked up with a guy that sells metal sculptures at
a local gallery. He said he'll introduce me to the owner
and see if I can get some of my sculptures in there. I'm
hoping it may work out.

Recently, I made a Video
on How to make a Rolling Ball Sculpture. I really
didn't think I'd sell many of them and neigther did my wife.
Shockingly I've already sold 6 of them! woohoo! While
making it, my wife sort of make it hard on me to make the
video and hasn't really helped me much on it. However, now
that it's been selling I guess she sees dollar signs! For
me it was really the fun of the whole process, from the
vision, to doing, to filming, to video editing, to creating
a dvd, to listing on ebay, and eventually selling. For her,
it's all about the money. women.

One of the electronics projects I was working on before my
hard drive crashed a few months ago was a computer that
controlled the elevator for a rolling ball scultpure. It
was kind of cool because it had a clock in it where it could
be set to automatically drop a ball every hour or so. I had
built a pic scheduler rtos and it was working pretty well,
and I had done some neato things for it. But, when the hard
drive crashed of course I didn't have any backup. Well, my
brain swirled one day and I thought, I still have that
program in the chip that I burned. I could suck out the
chip's brains and then disassemble my code and basically
recreate the source. I could then finish the changes I
wanted to make to the program and the build the computerized
rolling ball sculpture. That would save me tons of work
from building the program again from scratch (which I wasn't
wanting to do). So, perhaps someday, I'll try to suck the
code out. My only dread is that I hope I didn't put a code
lock on the chip or I won't be able to suck out the code.

At my job they sort
of have
left me to my own devices. I'm working on a program that
involves ai. It's sort of interesting. Unfortunately, I
can't give any details but at least to me it's really cool
so you'll just have to take my word for it. :-( Anyway,
it's weird that the company hasn't really checked on my
progress and sort of has forgotten about me. I'm sort of
glad because hopefully when they do check on me again, I'll
have something really cool to show. Like many programming
jobs, it takes a while before some cool behavior emerges
(emergent behavior!). Anyway, I like my employer and it
seems like they like me and my work. So, especially with
all of the people losing their jobs, I'm just hoping my job
holds out too.

I'm really liking the new First Baptist Church in
Garland we're going to. I really like our Sunday School
Class also. We already have many good friends. Well, the
teacher will be out this Sunday so he asked me to cover for
him! So for this Easter Sunday I'll get to teach.

This Sunday is also my Birthday. We're sort of short on
funds so I told my wife to cool it on spending for my
birthday. We'll probably seem Monsters vs.
Aliens in 3D at the IMAX for my Birthday going out film.
The movies I'd like to see (but are not out yet) are:
Terminator Salvation, Star Trek, Transformers, Xmen Origins
and Asto Boy and I can't really think of much else. It's
weird how the sci-fi and robot stuff has really bubbled up
to the top this year.

Get the Robot
Building For Dummies book for only $12.59! Right now
it's $17.59 at DeepDescount.com
and there's a $5
Rebate so
it's $12.59 and right now they have Free Shipping so it's
$12.59 only! That's the best deal I've seen on this book!
Yea!
Get it while it's hot! Woohoo!

We went to Disneyland over the Christmas holidays. We had a
great time. Everyone told us that Disneyland was smaller
than DisneyWorld. It is, but it wasn't as dire as people
made it out to be. We went to California Adventure and
Disneyland and there was certainly plenty to do and enjoy for
the 3 days we were at disney (and 6 days total in
California). It was cold and rainy and that
kept the crowds at bay so we were able to ride many rides
twice and three times and only have wait times of 5, 10 and
20 minutes; unheard of for the busiest time of the year for
them. We also went to Universal Studios Hollywood which we
hated. We also saw Hollywood (Chinese Grumman Theater & the
walk of fame stars and the Kodak Theater), Santa Monica
beach (which has a nice carnival type pier and beach), and
Long Beach (which has the Queen Mary and a Ferris Wheel).
We stayed at Castle Inn and Suites which looks sort of like
a castle and was only two blocks from the Disneyland
Entrance so we walked to Disney every day. The Hotel looked
cool from the outside but was basically a cheap motel on the
inside. It was good enough to sleep in, though, and they
kept it clean, and it was close, so we were happy.
Disneyland, I thought, was as big as The Magic Kingdom in
Florida or bigger and was just as good if not better.
California Adventure was as good as MGM Studios in Florida
if not better. So overall I thought it was at least 2/3rds
as good as the 4 parks in Florida. Of course DisneyWorld is
much more than the parks so it doesn't really compare in
that respect (probably 40 times bigger) but I think as far
as the major parks it ranks nearly as good. I was really
surprised at that given so many people told me how bad
Disneyland was (or perhaps I just perceived they were
telling me it was so bad). I'll still probably go to
Florida from here on out but I was pleasantly surprised with
how good Disneyland was.

Of course Disneyland gave me lots of robotic, graphics,
mechanical and video inspiration. Hopefully it won't all go
to waste.

My rolling ball sculptures have been doing well.
Before I
left I sold a sculpture for $275 so that about made our
vacation paid for before we left. I also listed a sulpture
before we left on vacation and it sold the day we were
coming back so that was another $75. However, we went way
overboard on food cost at the parks so I guess we really
didn't break even. It really is amazing how much they gouge
for food at the parks. It was easy for the four of us to
spend over $40 a meal and that was just burgers, fries and a
drink. My hopes is that I'll sell some more RBSs and I'll
be able to pay off that small debt rather quickly and begin
saving for our next vacation.

I've been doing a little coding at work and at home I've
really be craving doing some PIC code slinging. I lost just
about all of the PIC code I had in the past since my last
hard drive crash. I thought I had some backups but I can't
find any backup DVDs that work yet so all is lost on that.
It may be fun to recode the RTOS I made for the 16f877 and
perhaps do it better this time. I had pretty much polished
it. I also had a nice LED text display pretty much polished
and it's lost too. I had some nice I2C bit bang code
polished and it's all gone too. I could cry as it will take
a while to recreate all that stuff from scratch. There's a
lot to be said for doing backups and using a system that
actually is able to restore the backup. grr.

One of the things I'd like to mess with is getting a
wireless network connection going on a pic board. I think
it would be nice to talk to a pic controlled RBS where I
could tell a sculpture to do some commands like drop a ball
or give status from my wifi connection to it. Then from the
pc I could do stuff like a cron job to drop a ball every
hour or something or do a internet webcam rbs with internet
control or something like that. I'll probably settle with
having a USB pic dongle that does wireless codes to a PIC
board on the sculpture but I'd rather have the sculpture be
self contained with a wifi connection then any old computer
could talk to it. Hmmm, security. Well, I guess it would
be nice to be WEP or WAP enabled too. Oh well, it's getting
complicated. I guess it's just a dream anyway, I don't know
if I will give that much time to it anyway.

My mom took care of our hedgehogs while we were on
vacation.
I think they secretly love the hedgehogs too. They
apparently took them out a lot. They bought the girl
hedgehog a new wheel to run on. They bought them different
food and cleaned their cage a few times (wasn't needed) and
talked about them a lot when we got back. I guess if they
ever have babies I'll offer one to them and see if they take
it. We'll try to breed them again in January.

At work, they're letting me code a little more and
there's
less customer service to do. I'm liking that and hoping it
will go more that way as time goes on. They're starting to
hire a few more people so that hopefully means there's a
little more job security where I work. I've worked there
for about a year and a half but there's no mention of
reviews or raises to anyone. I guess in this economy, just
having a job is good enough so I'm not complaining.

We left Golden Meadows Baptist Church and have
started going
to First Baptist Church in Garland. We really like it
there. I'm sort of worried for GMBC. I'm hoping it can
turn around but I'm really doubtful. :-( It's quite a
contrast going from a really small church to a really big
church. I'm really enjoying the change so far. We'll
probably join this Sunday.

Today Dec 15th, 2008 (one day only) Woot has the
VEXplorer RC Robotic Construction System for $80 + $5
shipping. I guess that's a good price wind the next best on
froogle is $129 and the average price is around $160.

More of my rolling
ball sculptures have been selling on ebay. I'm about
$300 or $400 short of funding my vacation this year with
RBSs and selling stuff in my garage on ebay. So for the
most part I don't have to go into debt to go on vacation.

I had one person ask to commission a $1125 RBS but then only
wanted to pay $500 for it. Usually when someone wants to
commission an RBS they start pulling stupid negotiation
goofiness on me like that to where I just about don't want
to do commissioning of RBSs anymore. What's funny is how
they email me and go on and on about how many millions I'll
make and how they have it all figured out and then want to
cut the price by more than half. I've seen it so many times
I can sort of see it coming and I have a hard time trusing
people when it comes to commissioning something. So my best
bet is to just make them and list them on ebay. That way I
pretty much don't have some nut bossing me and goofing me
around. It's just I make them and they buy them or not. I
like that way of doing things and so I'll probably turn down
commissioning of RBSs. Unless someone can make it worth my
while, it's just not worth it to me (does that sentence make
sense?).

So far we're still going to First Baptist in Garland. We
like it a lot and will probably join there. I keep hearing
stuff through the grapevine about my old church and it
doesn't sound good. It's sort of sad but we're glad we left
when we did. It's never going to change and so the best bet
is just to go somewhere where it's better.

We're all excited about going to Disneyland in California.
My daughter Bethany is becoming a cute little actress and
wants to see Hollywood. We'll also see California Adventure
and Universal Studios Hollywood. We'll probably also go to
Long beach and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Redondo Beach
and Santa Monica Beach, etc. We decided to fly instead of
drive. I like that better because we'll have more time and
we won't be worn out when we get there. We'll be staying at
the Castle Inn. It's supposed to look like a castle on the
outside and the inside will have suits of armor, shields and
swords on the walls all sort of Medieval decked out. It's
right across from Disney they say so hopefully we can just
walk to the park.

Over a month and a half ago we put our boy and girl
hedgehogs together hoping they would mate. Well, it's been
enough time now and no babies so I guess it didn't happen.
Boo hoo. Anyway, we may try it again after January.
Natalie had already come up with names and was bouncing
around saying we were going to have babies and on and on.
Oh well. Spike, the boy hedgehog, was sweet with me the
night before last. He climbed all over me and then got
tired and just laid beside my leg as I watched TV. They're
sort of like Grumpy and Happy all at the same time type of
little pets. My mom said she would keep them while we were
on vacation. I think she secretly likes them too. She
always wants to see them when they come over.

So far my job is holding out. The product that I was doing
tech support for is for the most part dead. We're still
supporting it but it isn't going anywhere. We've been moved
over to another project or two and that's been fun and I'm
really getting into it. We got notice that the customer
liked what we did and signed us up for another year! A few
other customers have also purchased more. That's always
good. Some things are sort of looking up and others down
but it looks like we have a future at least now. I was
worried for a while there that the company was just about to
go under and now it looks like we still have a little lease
on life. Good timing too with the way the economy is going.

Yea, two of my rolling ball sculptures I listed I sold on
ebay! The popsicle stick RBS didn't sell for much. I
didn't expect it to. However it was just about 1 or 2
inches too big which made shipping cost about $10 more than
expected so I lost even more money on it. I made about $20
on something that took me weeks to produce. shrug. The
Christmas ornament didn't sell at all. Perhaps it's too
early yet. The copper one sold for $75.99! The shipping
will be more than I put and the copper is really expensive
right now, so there again I probably made about $50 on it.
It's not a fortune but at least it's something.

There's basically two kinds of people that look at an RBS:
those that get it and those that don't. My boss came into
my office and saw the sculpture and said "that looks like
coat hangers" and didn't even care to pick up a marble and
try it. A guy at one of the robot meetings saw one of my
sculptures and said, "that's just ground wire" and was
making fun of it and snearing at it. Then there's the other
type that look at the sculptures and says stuff like,
"that's so cool, how did you do that?" or "that's so
awesome, can I do it?" or "I want one!" It's like you
either get it or you don't. My boss asked me how much to
make him one. I told him I sold it on ebay for $75 and he
said that's about $70 more than he wanted to pay for it.
Like wow, did he really think I sold them for $5 or is it
that he's my boss and expects me to make him one for next to
nothing. Shrug.

Anyway, I'm hoping to fund my vacation by selling these
things and so far I've made near $100 toward my vacation.
So now just about 30 or 40 more like that and I'll have
enough. ugg. So you see, I probably can't fund the entire
vacation with them but if it pays for a few souvenirs or
extra dinners on my vacation fund that will be nice.

We went to Wylie First Baptist Church last Sunday. We
really liked it. It's a really large church and their
services are like a rock concert. It was quite a
production. We actually liked it quite a lot. It was very
flashy, the preaching was solid and the singing was good. A
very worshipful experience in spite of the production.

We went to South Garland Baptist Church the previous Sunday.
The sanctuary had an old people smell but it was a pretty
good service also. We were quite impressed. It's a medium
sized church and the people seem sincere.

We went to Northeast church. It was an independent church.
It was very laid back with everyone wearing shorts and
t-shirts and jeans. You could tell the visitors (like us)
because they were dressed nicer than everyone else. The
service was worshipful and generic. There were lots of
kids/teens there - way more than I expected. They must have
a great teen ministry. However the preaching got into
baptism and works for salvation and losing your salvation
which I believe to be incorrect theology so we won't be
going back.

Anyway, the church hopping experience is new to us since
we've been at Golden Meadows for so many years. We like not
having any responsibility right now. It's a little liberating.

I watched all of the Firefly
episodes online. Man, I wish they had more of those.
They're so cool.

I resigned my music ministry from Golden Meadows Baptist
Church. Now we're church hopping. My buddy Tim McGough
has taken over where I left off. This is a really big step
for us but something we felt led to do.

Still paying down my debt on Prosper.
We're probably going to sell the remaining clothes we bought
on Liquidation.com
Perhaps that will help us finance our vacation as well.

Our garage door opener went bad so I had the joy of buying a
new Genie for $150 and putting it up myself. Probably
someone who knows what they're doing could put it up in an
instance. For me it took half of a Saturday and a few hours
on a Tuesday. Yea, it's working now! My wife is so happy
and that's all that matters!

We're hoping to drive from Garland, TX to Los Angeles,
California for vacation. We'll probably go during the
Christmas holidays. I'm thinking we'll stop at Carlsbad
Caverns, NM, and perhaps Roswell. We'll go to the Grand
Canyon and drive thru Las Vegas. Then we'll go to
Disneyland and California Adventure. Then we'll go to
Hollywood and Beverly Hills. We'll probably see Long Beach
and Santa Monica beach. We might try to go to Universal
Studios and Knotts Berry Farms. And whatever else we can
fit in. I really don't want to drive but my wife like's the
idea and the kids sort of do to. My oldest daughter is
getting her driver's permit and she was all into it.
That'll work if we drive our car but if we rent, I don't
think that will work out. I've already hit up all of the
free travel guide sites for ideas. Anyway, here's hoping we
can scrounge up some cash to go on vacation by then.